Bobblehead
by chespin
Summary: She never wanted this. Hinata, after the war.


disclaimer: nope, definitely do not own Naruto.

notes: this is a rather cynical view of the series' end. I, personally, don't think that Hinata would turn out like this if the series did somehow end this way, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen if she did. hence, fic. also, ten facts format, because…I can't write Naruto fic otherwise. :D

for clarity's sake: let's say that the war is done and the good guys (mostly) won and there is peace to be had. kind of.

* * *

1. When the ashes settle, they give her and most of the others a hasty, undeserved promotion. Her father, blind in one eye now and more heartbroken than ever, tells her that her sister will become clan head once she is of a proper age.

"There are bigger plans for you," he says. "…Try to prepare yourself."

She doesn't think about his words for long — she is happy, she supposes, for her stronger sister, and is still in mourning for all the lives lost. And in between that there is a plethora of missions, of treaties to oversee and relationships to maintain. Tsunade appoints her as a sort of bodyguard when it becomes clear that Sakura won't be leaving the hospital any time soon, and Hinata finds herself going all over the continent.

He would have loved it, she thinks. They both would have.

* * *

2. Tsunade needs to run the village, a brisk Shizune tells her. As such, Hinata will be acting as the Leaf's representative abroad. It isn't a particularly weighty position — an elder will accompany her to deal with the politics of it all; she's more of a figurehead, a sign of peace.

"They're calling you a lady, you know," Shizune says. She plays with the flowers in her hands and stares down at the memorial stone. "The white lady, the angel of grace…something magical like that."

Hinata knows better: they're calling her the hero's angel, the legacy of a boy long gone.

She thinks it disgusting. (If anything, she's a shadow creeping up the walls.)

* * *

3. She's sent to Sand first. The heat beats on her skin and turns it a peeling pale red; Temari takes a look at her and has to fight off a twisted smile. Gaara doesn't notice: he glances over her head when she's brought to him, and manages to avoid being alone with her for the entirety of her stay.

"He's…struggling," Temari says. "He's grieving, and looking at you…" She trails off, and shrugs. "It'd be the same if it were Sakura or the Hokage, you know."

Hinata doesn't know. But she nods all the same, head heavy under the weight of her borrowed cloak.

* * *

4. "I don't get why they keep sending you on them," Kiba says when they happen to be in the village at the same time. The war's been over for half a year, and she hasn't seen her team since. "You're a jounin now — you should be with us, doing missions, instead of running around like…"

He stops, and then busies himself with checking Akamaru's paws. The sun glints off his forehead protector — the Leaf one, again, not the shinobi one they'd taken to wearing then — and Hinata thinks it's going to be another long summer. Two years ago, she'd been a chuunin and it'd felt like those hot days would never end.

Now she's starting to wish time could go to a standstill.

"You can say his name," she says when the silence has carried on for too long. Kiba looks at her, uncomfortable. "It's not like we were—" She bites her lip and thinks of all the futures she had once dreamt up. And how she'd mooned after a boy she hadn't really known, and how she's grieving for someone who had likely never existed. "It's not like it's an open wound," she says. "I'm…I'm doing what I want to do."

It's the truth she chooses to believe in. If Kiba thinks it odd, he doesn't say so aloud, but the way he watches her afterwards says enough.

* * *

5. Hinata turns seventeen the same day the treaty is renewed. It's a cause for celebration, Ino says with a stiff smile, so they help hang up lanterns in the streets and laugh when people start to drunkenly sing.

"Where are you off to next?" Ino asks, dangling her feet over a roof's edge. Her hair drags along her chin, flashing gold in the waning light. "I swear, you haven't been properly home in…years, I think."

"Just one," Hinata says. She pools the ends of her own hair into her cupped palms; it's getting a little too long now, but when she'd mentioned it to her sister, Hanabi had said that it was good for her. The hair of a pacifist, she'd said, not the hair of a warrior. Not like Ino's or Sakura's. "I'm scheduled to go to Cloud after this."

Ino raises her head. "Really?" she says, skeptical. "Is that okay?"

After the last few fights had fizzled out, Hinata had been introduced to the Raikage's brother. He'd grinned at her and clapped her so hard on the back she'd nearly fallen to her knees. And then he'd said, far more quietly than he seemed capable of, that she would always be welcome in his home.

"Yes," Hinata says, letting her hair fall loose.

* * *

6. Though her escort begs otherwise, Hinata lets her eyes remain unbound throughout her time in Cloud. People stare at her openly, and when she meets the Raikage, he snorts and asks her if she's feeling particularly suicidal.

"The Hyuuga are the Leaf," she says. "The Leaf is the Hyuuga. I have no reason to hide."

He looks her over once, taking in the dainty hands attached to dainty wrists. Then he shrugs. "Your Hokage said you have a proclivity towards medicine," he says, already turning away. "C will take you to the hospital."

Her blond escort stirs, and Hinata steels her resolve.

"I would rather," she hears herself saying, "do my job, Lord Raikage."

He still has his back to her, and despite that Hinata has to fight the urge to run. She hears C's rapid breathing, and the only other sound is the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat. It would be fitting, she thinks, watching the unbroken line of the Raikage's shoulders, for her to die here. Her uncle had been killed for this country, so it's blood for blood, and it would make so much _sense_—

She starts when the Raikage booms into laughter.

"Leaf," he says, looking over his shoulder at her. "I should have expected this." He makes a motion at C, and then starts moving forward in the hallway.

"Uh. This way," C says, hurrying after his boss. Hinata follows, trying not to vomit.

* * *

7. "Standing up to the Raikage is a serious thing," Tsunade says. She's not smiling, but she's not glaring. "Are you sure you didn't have a death wish that day?"

"Quite sure," Hinata says. She stands with her hands clasped behind her back, all too aware of her sister lingering in the corner with Sarutobi Konohamaru. Eleven years old and already a tried chuunin being paired with a seasoned one. Hinata feels old, and can't imagine what goes through Tsunade's mind when she sees them.

Tsunade grunts and rifles through her paperwork. A minute goes by, during which Konohamaru squirms and Hanabi pokes him in the ribs, before Tsunade pulls free a single piece of paper.

"Apprenticeship form," she says, quickly signing it. "It's needed for official records, I suppose, though I don't know what good it does anyone."

The paper is held out to her. Hinata stares at it. Konohamaru chokes.

"Go on," Tsunade says, waving it. "You don't really have a choice."

She takes it, and it sits in her hand like a brick.

* * *

8. She's warned beforehand that it will be nothing like Sakura's apprenticeship. That had been for power and finesse; Hinata, Shizune says, will be learning something else entirely.

The first day she shows up in the Hokage's office, Tsunade points at a fresh stack of paperwork and tosses a pen her way. The second day is the same, and so is the third, and so are the rest. She works from sunrise until sundown, and trains afterwards until the moonlight shines a path home. There are no more missions or trips abroad. She's being groomed, her father says, more wary than happy.

The old rookies sidestep around her during their rare conversations. She hasn't spoken to Sakura in over a year. Her own teammates sigh when she comes near, and Kurenai only smiles vaguely.

"Prepare yourself," she says, holding the hand of the dark-eyed toddler at her side. "It's all you can really do, now."

Hinata dredges up a smile for Asuma's son, and turns back to her one-time teacher. "Why me?" she asks, though she knows (has always known, has always expected) the answer.

"Fate, I suppose," Kurenai says. "Or if you want something logical, then…succession would be a better answer. You understood his ideals best."

Not him. Just his ideas. His dreams.

She's just a shadow on the wall, reaching for the light.

* * *

9. "It's not that I don't understand," Ino says a year later, voicing the concerns everyone's been feeling, "it's just that…you've only — _we've_ only been jounin for two years. That's not exactly indicative of Hokage material, you know?"

Hinata does know. She still doesn't understand.

She is not the strongest of her clan, she is not the brightest of her age. She is quiet words and downcast looks. She is more Hinata than Hyuuga, and she is going to be the Sixth Hokage of Leaf.

There are times where she blames him. There are times where she hates him.

(Mostly, Hinata's just starting to wish he were still alive.)

"…You're going to do great," Ino says softly. She smiles, and Hinata is reminded of the girl who'd once shrieked at a group of bullies for her. "Maybe what you're what we're going to need."

"Maybe," Hinata says. She does not add that she is a weak imitation of what they need, or that there are better copiers to be had. Ino understands, probably better than Hinata ever will.

* * *

10. Sakura finds her in the corner, after the ceremony is over and the crowd has dwindled. Kakashi and Tsunade hover at the end of the square with the elders, who eye her new costume with distinct apprehension.

"Still the same," Sakura says. She doesn't smile, but like Tsunade, she doesn't do anything else. "You know, people are only going to stare more now because of that."

Hinata reaches for the brim of her hat; it casts most of her face into the shadows, and she finds she almost likes it. "I don't mind," she says. She faces Sakura fully, taking in her dimmer hair and warier eyes. "It's…been a long time."

Sakura shrugs lightly. "I wanted to keep busy," she says. "It helped."

This is the girl who lost both of her boys in the war. The girl who only vaguely remembers what family is, and who knows too well what her teammates had gone through in childhood. Hinata knows that this girl could break her in seconds.

"I'm glad it's you," Sakura says abruptly. She looks Hinata in the eyes — a better copy, Hinata thinks, one breaking free of her mold. "If it had to be anyone, I'm glad it's you."

She has to ask, if only once. "Why?"

Now Sakura does smile. It's bitter and all too similar to Tsunade's after a long night of drinking.

"You're doing it for him," she says. "You would do anything for him, so you're going to do this the way you think he would. It's…not what he would want, but it's what we need. So I'm glad."

"Anything for the village," Hinata murmurs.

Sakura nods, and her smile turns loses some of its edge. "Naruto's village," she says, and Hinata's starting to see.


End file.
